'It's a tremendous opportunity,' said the head of one health IT company. |
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“The conversation has been very favorable,” Auerbach said. “We’ve talked to Gov. [Mitch] Daniels about how to drive innovation. There are a number of states that are focused on not partnering with large, government contractors.”

The opportunity is, seemingly, everywhere. Even in states that have used executive orders and heated rhetoric to push back against implementation of the reform law, vendors still see possible contracts.

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“There is a group that feels as though they don’t want to be associated with the Affordable Care Act,” said Leavitt Partners CEO Michael Leavitt, who was Health and Human Services secretary under President George W. Bush. “Privately, though, it’s clear that several of those are planning behind the scenes, because they don’t want to have a federal exchange.”

Major health vendors have also begun to form partnerships. Leavitt and Connextions recently announced a partnership, as did the benefits administration firm Ceridian, which will partner with tech giant Microsoft to develop and sell a small-business health exchange system.

“When I look at how much we’ve already committed, Ceridian has identified this as one of its largest business opportunities in the long term,” said John Hunter, executive vice president of Ceridian Exchange Services. “We’re investing in a way that is going to make us very relevant to the marketplace. A lot of it has to do with timing: We want to be ready for what has to occur before 2014, when exchanges have to prove their ability to work.”

Moreover, health information technology vendors told POLITICO that the ACA has had an unintended — and lucrative — side effect: amping up interest in private health exchanges to capture the remaining individual market, largely among those who earn too much to receive a public subsidy.

“We see some form of the exchanges happening no matter what,” said Eric Paternoster, CEO of Infosys Public Services, which recently launched a new platform to support financial transactions on a health exchange. “Along with the legislative exchanges, we’re seeing an unanticipated side benefit of some private insurers setting up their own private exchanges, in parallel to whatever the state is doing.”

Paternoster said Infosys Public Services has invested about half of its products and solutions budget on developing the exchange product, and he hopes to take its framework into about a third of half the states.

“What’s great about the opportunity here is it’s not a competitive scenario,” he said. “The Department of Health Services in Ohio doesn’t compete against the one in Kentucky. There’s the same need in each state for someone to deliver these services, rather than build their own application from scratch.”

Readers' Comments (8)

Obamacare will bankrupt our nation and will have to be settled by the Supreme Court. The unfortunate part of all of this is that Elena Kagan lied to the Senate confirmation hearings about her involvement in drafting this bill. I hope she recuses herself from this case. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Boy , the liberal media has really gone into overdrive lately by trying to polish the Obamacare turd. This has to be the third article on Politico in the last few days trying to hype the unconstitutional highly unpopular law.

So, what you are saying is that jobs are being created because of this law. Jobs in IT and healthcare industry. Private sector jobs that are putting money in people's pockets...on top of the law helping insure virtually every american,

and decreasing the deficit by over 1trillion over 20 years,

and allowing 800,000 americans retire earlier because they no longer need to work just for healthcare benefits since they can purchase it in the exchange,

and the fact that the same plan today will be 14% cheaper by 2020,

and the fact that pre-existing conditions must be covered,

and that insurance companies can no longer cap how much benefits you can receive,

and that 80-85% of all premiums must go toward healthcare...

Yep, how terrible. We must continue to yell and scream like our hair is on fire because FOX news and the GOP told us that it would destroy America (even though it is working in MA and every other industrialized nation ON EARTH with universal healthcare has lower costs and better results than us).

PS: All those above numbers come from the CBO, which is the last and final arbiter over how policy affects our nation. So, you can deny it, you can pull out some right-wing "source" to keep up your delusionaly world-view, but the facts are that what the CBO says is all that matters, and what the CBO says about the ACA is that it is good for this country. But, keep whining conservatives...keep whining, especially while you enjoy your insurance that you can buy from your state exchange with all of its protections.

Wow, quite a lot of new overhead to pay for. But we already knew that even before we read this horrid legislation. Anyone who believes that this will reduce costs one dime is delusional. Of course it was never intended to but we'll see about ditching it after Nov 2012.

Wow, quite a lot of new overhead to pay for. But we already knew that even before we read this horrid legislation. Anyone who believes that this will reduce costs one dime is delusional. Of course it was never intended to but we'll see about ditching it after Nov 2012.

America has put off dealing with efficient and effective health care for our people since FDR signed a rag tag health coverage bill in October, 1943 to stem the demand for actual pay increases...Again health care was used as a bargaining chip by politicians and businesses.

For me personally living in the number one state with the most uninsured, Texas, and having survived CANCER I can not purchase health care insurance on the OPEN MARKET. I must use the insurer of last resort and that is Texas Health RISK Pool...I empha that word RISK because in Texas your health is at RISK with Texas Health Risk because you are insured by the state that has almost a 30 billion dollar deficit because we are under the Republican paradigm of 'Borrow and Breaks'...We borrow the bucks for everything to get tax breaks to the wealthy. Makes sense as long as no one questions it and thinks that no taxes means the same services at NO COSTS.

Now the bill is coming due to take care of our citizens and no one wants to face up to it. The healthy can't understand why they should be bothered to pay for the unhealthy and those older, like myself, can't get health care coverage from the private market because we actually will use the health part of health insurance. The Republicans here say the answer is personal responsibility; but they should NOT be personally responsibile themselves...Makes as much sense as George W. Bush speaking the English language.

When America finally wakes up to the fact that we all share together in the need for health care coverage and a single source payer system is actually more efficient and effective along with the fact we will save money will be the day that Republicans and Democrats will agree on America First, Last , and Always.